When Your Approach to Your Career Is a Trauma Response
How I Camouflaged My Voice to Fit In, Not Stand Out
I’m sitting at my desk, my laptop open in front of me, a list of open tabs on my browser. I’m trying to get better at organizing my freelance projects, all ̶s̶c̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶i̶e̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶A̶D̶H̶D̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶ in various stages of research and writing.
My intention is to go through the open tabs to make notes on why I opened them, what relationship they have to other tabs/projects; what it means for pieces I want to write.
I am doing none of this. Instead, I’m putting together pieces of an electronic jigsaw puzzle.
Not lost on me is that this is exactly the thing I used to do as a young teen on the family computer. The only difference is that instead of a puzzle, I played endless games of Solitaire.
Same self-talk. “Just pick something to write about. Just those three tabs. Just a paragraph.”
It’s executive dysfunction of the highest degree. ADHD influencers talk about it, the absolute inability to talk yourself into doing The Thing, or to start The Thing only to realize there are a dozen other Things in front of it and it’s hard to justify a New Thing at that point.
